Consumers are increasingly using kiosks to conduct business with enterprises. The kiosks come in a variety of sizes and are used for a variety of purposes. Some kiosks are drive through, such as fast food establishments, pharmacies, banks, and the like. Other kiosks are stationary located in gas stations, airlines, grocery stores, department stores, and the like.
In addition, what is considered a kiosk is evolving with today's technology. For example, digital signs now provide advertisements and mechanisms for users to interact with the displays to perform transactions. Such mechanisms include blue tooth communication, Near Field Communication (NFC), Quick Response (QR) code scanning, WiFi communication, and the like.
Many kiosk stations at grocery stores include devices that weigh produce. Such devices also exist at cashier-manned stations. Governments impose strict regulations about how these weight devices are calibrated and audited. Consequently, these devices often have to have a separate switch that turns on calibration functions and this switch is often sealed when delivered to the grocery stores. Once the seal is broken and the switch is tripped, the device permits calibration and records audit details for the calibration.
Retrieval of audit details is often achieved via a separate stand alone monitor that is often activated by some particular keying sequence and permits the audit data to be displayed on the extra monitor. It is believed that the customer monitor could corrupt retrieval of calibration and audit data; therefore, a separate stand alone monitor is used.
It can be seen that a lot of additional expense goes into complying with government regulations with respect to calibrating weight or other consumer measuring devices. These regulations add to the cost of manufacture of the devices (sealing with stand alone switch) and add to the cost of the enterprise that deploys the devices because of the need to buy and maintain dual monitors with one reserved for retrieval of audit details.